Question

How does selection sort work?

1) Separates the array into arrays with a length of 1 and then merges them together in sorted order in a recursive method
2) The next element in the "unsorted" list is moved in comparison to other elements in the "sorted" list until all elements are sorted to each other.
3) The smallest element in the array is swapped with the element in the 0th index. Then, the element of the smallest part of the rest of the array is swapped with the next element and so on.

Answer 1

Selection sort works by dividing the array into sorted and unsorted subarrays and then repeatedly finding the smallest element in the unsorted subarray and swapping it with the leftmost unsorted element until the entire array is sorted.

Step-by-step explanation:

Selection sort is a simple comparison-based sorting algorithm. The basic idea is to divide the array into two parts: a sorted subarray and an unsorted subarray. Initially, the sorted subarray is empty and the unsorted subarray is the entire list. The algorithm proceeds by finding the smallest (or largest, depending on sorting order) element in the unsorted subarray and swapping it with the leftmost unsorted element, moving the boundary between the sorted and unsorted subarrays one element to the right.

This is done by selecting the smallest element in the array and swapping it with the element in the 0th index. Then, the process is repeated for the rest of the array, finding the next smallest element and swapping it with the first element of the unsorted section, and so on until the entire array is sorted. Therefore, the correct description of how selection sort works corresponds to option 3 from the student's question.